Poland is not a country often associated with vegetables. When I stayed with a Polish family last year, the food the Baniaks cooked was delicious – think homemade dumplings, potato pancakes, and chicken soup – but it was a bit light on greens. In fact, the only green dish I particularly remember was a gyros, a layered leaf salad ... from Greece.
But first impressions can be misleading. The Grocer magazine has revealed that, in fact, Poles eat more vegetables a day (477g) than any other country in Europe – and nearly twice as much the UK's measly 258g.
Ewa Michalik, author of Food of Poland, and the owner of Patio, a Polish restaurant in west London, says we shouldn't be surprised: "We cook a lot of cabbage, and we also eat a lot of beetroot, which has been forgotten as a vegetable over here." Poland's most famous vegetable dish, she says, is the kapusta – a salad Michalik makes from red and white cabbage, and accompanies with apples. A typical Polish meal often contains both a salad and a hot vegetable soup made from beetroot (barscht), cauliflower, celery, or leek. While we're speaking, a customer orders gołabki – parcels of cabbage wrapped around rice. "It's very tasty," says Michalik.
